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Kingdom Hearts II & Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories

The audience was also quite interested to know if much had to be cut from the game at Disney's behest. He claimed that, yes, there were a few elements he'd created that Disney was not happy with that will not be included in the final product. When the press pushed further for specifics, Nomura retreated a bit. "I can't talk about them or Disney will do stuff to me." He also noted that, in general, the development team tended to know what Disney would or would not like and found it easy to simply steer clear of ideas that might rock the boat too much. When asked if it would ever be possible to see the Kingdom Hearts license to appear on any other platforms -- besides the Playstation 2 and Game Boy Advance, of course -- Nomura claimed that because the products are half-owned by Disney, it would take an agreement between the two companies to make that happen. In other words, don't expect to see Kingdom Hearts hitting any of the other major consoles in the near future.

The final, and possibly the most exciting revelation of the roundtable concerned the specific Disney licenses that will be included in Kingdom Hearts II. One journalist noted that the inclusion of the Nightmare Before Christmas stage in the first title was both surprising and welcome. He wondered if there would be any surprises of that magnitude in the upcoming sequel. Nomura's response was promising, even if not specific. "We have a bigger surprise in store for you."